The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-18
Tho pansinn Sharks.

The pension sharks at Washington are re-
| sponsible for a great deal of the hostility OF
the Grand Army of the Republic To the
| President. They have carried on a bitter
war against him ever since he began to
show a disposition to keep pension legisla-
ton within proper bounds. They pretend
| TO be patriots, and to have only the interests
of the ex- Union soldiers in view, but the
| truth is that their sole aim is to fill their
own pockets.
The richest and most influential pension
shark at the national capital IS the proprie-
tor of the National Tribune, a weekly
publication which is devoted to working up
sentiment among ex-Union soldiers III favor
of pension schemes. If it We're not for this
paper, which circulntcs almost exclusively
among the ex-soldier clement, there would
not have been one-quarter as many pension
bills before Congress during the last ten
years as there have been.
The pension shark who controls it sees
way in which he can enlarge the pension
list, and he at once begins to advocate it in
his paper He tells the ex-soldiers that they
have been badly treated, and that they are
entitled 10 a great deal more in the way of
pensions than they have received, or are
likely to receive. He insists that they shall
petition Congress to oppose the new scheme,
and in little while petitions reach Congress
by the hundreds Congressman who never
sec the National Tribune sometimes wonder
what the influence is which has so suddenly
caused ex-soldiers to become active in Sc
curing additional pension legislation. II
A. r.
quick TO act favorably upon the petitions.
The owner of the National Tribune, who
is both a pension claim attorney and
patent lawyer, does not make much money
out of his paper, but the work that paper
does for him pays him immensely. 1t brings
him clients by the thousands. and from
about every one of them he gets from $40
TO SIS as a fee for getting a pension claim
allowed He is already very rich man,
but the more his wealth increases the more
anxious does he become to increase it.
When the President vetoed the dependent
pension bill he was mad enough to do some
desperate deed His paper was full of at
tacks upon the President, and he sought to
make the ex-soldier believe that they had
suffered a great wrong. After the President
had accepted the invitation to go to st.
Louis ii attacked him viciously, and was
chiefly instrumental in bringing out the
hostile feeling which prevented him from
going there. 1t is now actively engaged in
keeping alive that feeling. 1t did not want
the President to go to st. Louis, because it
thought that his presence there would inter
fere with the plan of the pension sharks,
which is to adopt strong resolutions in favor
of dependent pension bill similar to the
one which was vetoed, and which the pen
sion sharks intend to present to Congress
next winter.
1t was an unhappy day for the Grand Ar
my when it fell under the influence of these
sharks. They will use the organization for
all that it is worth to promote their plans,
even though they bring it into disrepute in
doing so. Already the people are begin
ming TO show a lack of confidence in it, and
it is now in danger of being regarded as a
disturber of the peace and a nuisance. 1t
claims to be non-political in its its charac-
ter, but it will hardly be denied thatit is get
ting TO play a very important part in poll
tics